The University of Massachusetts Amherst

Class Works with Nonprofit Fighting Human Trafficking

photo of Freedom Cafe manager Dan Johnson and student Sarah Crowley

Students in UMass Amherst School of Public Policy Professor Betsy Schmidt’s Social & Environmental Enterprises class recently presented recommendations to the Freedom Café on ways to better support its mission and strengthen its sales. The café, which sits on the edge of campus on North Pleasant Street, is an all-volunteer run coffee shop that donates its proceeds to help victims of human trafficking. The class project reflects the School of Public Policy’s commitment to constructive social change.

Since it opened in 2013, the Freedom Café has raised more than $45,000 to support a vocational center it helped establish in India, which provides economic alternatives to poor women who might otherwise turn to, or be forced into, commercial sex work or other forms of human trafficking. The cafe also works to raise awareness of the issue through educational programs on campus and in the community.

While a coffee shop’s profit margins are low, said manager Dan Johnson, the café finds ways to keep down its overhead costs: all its student workers are volunteers or unpaid interns, it occupies rent- and utilities-free space provided by the First Baptist Church, and its fair-trade coffee is donated by Dean’s Beans. But the day-to-day demands of running a business, Johnson said, leave him limited time to focus on bigger projects.

That’s where the SPP class came in: over the course of the semester, student groups put together proposals for the cafe on marketing, staffing, and other needs identified by Johnson.  Earlier this month, he attended a class meeting to hear their presentations. One group gathered information about how the Freedom Café might qualify as a university work-study employer. Another group analyzed various UMass meal plans that the café might accept and offered advice on which would be most cost effective. Other students looked into local resources the café might connect with to help further its work and surveyed customers on why they frequent the shop, among other projects.

Johnson said he’s already started implementing some of the recommendations, including marketing tips like ordering coffee-cup sleeves with the café’s slogan, “Drink Coffee, End Slavery.” He also plans to make suggested improvements to the coffee shop’s website, to look into the possibility of qualifying for work-study employees, and to test whether joining the UMass UCard debit program makes sense for the shop.

Johnson is grateful for the SPP students’ work, which will help the Freedom Café continue to advance its mission, including making people aware of how their consumer decisions can unintentionally support human trafficking and enslaved labor. “We’re all very connected to this issue by where we buy our clothes, where we buy our coffee,” he said. “There’s a mentality that we want to pay as little as possible, and that mentality is what fuels the problem. We have to fight against that.”

Photo: Dan Johnson, manager of the Freedom Cafe, and student Sarah Crowley at the Social & Environmental Enterprises class presentations

About the School of Public Policy: Established in 2016, the UMass Amherst School of Public Policy is a hub for research and teaching, preparing students for leadership in public service. The program’s focuses include social change and public policy related to science and technology.

— Maureen Turner, communications manager, School of Public Policy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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